Clock City

by Rebekah Dodson

  “Oh, you like my mind tricks, do you young fish?”

  We turned toward the familiar voice, but even when I craned my neck I couldn’t see where it was coming from.

  His purple coattails swished as he came into view. The Keeper was just as I had seen him before—purple vest and slacks, yellow top hat, and clocks hanging haphazardly from every pocket.

  I saw Sebastian’s face change into a mask of rage. He flushed red, his eyes squinted, and his lips pressed firmly together. He only uttered one word: “You.”

  “And you’re the assassin that snuck into the palace to kill the people’s beloved leader.”

  “I would have succeeded if your guards hadn’t caught me!”

  I whipped my head to face Sebastian. “What?”

  His eyes widened. “Alayna. I meant to tell you, I just never had the chance.”

  “But, why?” I gritted my teeth, the anger rolling through me. “Why, Sebastian!” I screamed it then.

  “It was Victor’s orders.” Even now, he voice was soft, but it only made me madder. “He wanted me to find her and ease her suffering.”

  I couldn’t even respond. I just turned my head away from him. I gave a feeble tug on the ropes that bound me, knowing they wouldn’t loosen. I thought about Aila, with the child growing in her belly, and Wyatt, a young father. What had happened to them? Were they injured? Did they—I gulped—survive? And Sebastian, how could he? I was starting to love him. He was just as bad as Edwin!

  “I didn’t know she was your mother, I didn’t know anything.” Sebastian’s voice was strained. “When I saw you that day in the courtyard, I had second thoughts. You looked so much like her.”

  I turned my face and spit. Sebastian didn’t blink or wince, but met my gaze, the spit rolling down his check and onto the wooden slats we were tied to. “You and Edwin, two peas in a pod,” I said, “I suppose you were planning to kill me, too.”

  “No, Alayna, I—”

  “We’ve no time for this silly fish of a quarrel,” The Keeper interrupted, waving a black gloved hand in front of us. “Your escape was very ingenious, using the starlita stones to blow your way out of the cave, but I’ve no use for you now.”

  I tugged on the rope a little more, but turned to the Keeper, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “How were we ever of use to you before?”

  He leaned in close to my face and I shuddered. He was more terrifying up-close. His eyes, I saw, were black rings with orange centers, under wide lashes and high cheekbones. In another world he could have been royalty. Here he was just a crazy imitation.

  “Oh, my dear, dear fish.” He stroked my cheek with one leather gloved finger and I cringed. “You led me right to the Zespar village, where I hoped you would go. Now I have the Anual and the marlita your little friend was carrying. You’ve brought my plan to fruition. Fish!”

  “You can’t do this,” Sebastian yelled. “At least let the girl go, she doesn’t even belong here.”

  “How is that even true?” The Keeper pointed at me. “She looks just like her! She’s clearly part of the—fish!—plot!”

  “She’s just a random stranger, I don’t even know her,” said Sebastian.

  I threw my head around to him, glaring. How could he say that? After everything we’d been through?

  The Keeper leaned in to Sebastian, just as he had to me. “So,” the evil man whispered, “do you not fancy what happens to her?”

  “I do not.”

  I gasped.

  The Keeper stepped back arms crossed over his chest. He started to ramble, though to whom I couldn’t be sure. “But you can’t let him go, simply can’t. He’s too dangerous. Knows the resistance, he does. Can’t let him go, you can’t.” He started walking in little circles. “Yes, I can let him go, I can trick his mind, I can make him see my way. Can you? Fish!” he trailed off, his little circle growing tighter and faster.

  Suddenly, he stopped, and turned sharply back to us. “Boy,” he snapped, “what promise will you make me to be my servant?”

  “I only pretended to be part of the resistance, so I could get to you, oh wise one.”

  “You think me a fool?” The Keeper’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you betray your kin, Victor?”

  He must have seen my eyes go wide, because he turned to me. Throwing his head back he laughed, a terrifying sound. “This is my kingdom, and I know everything that goes on. Of course, Victor is a traitor fish, and when I catch him, he will certainly pay.”

  “Victor means nothing to me,” Sebastian proclaimed.

  The tears ran down my cheeks, spilling past my ears and dropping to the wooden table beneath me. I stared at the ceiling. What was Sebastian doing? Was he telling the truth, and I’d been mistaken this whole time? Or could he be playing along? I couldn’t tell.

  “Prove it,” The Keeper told him.

  “Edwin is my brother. He can testify to my loyalty.”

  I gasped again. They were in it together! My fears had been correct.

  The Keeper started frantically pulling out his clocks then, looking at each one for a few seconds, sometimes more. “Hmm. Well. As it appears, I’ve got a world to conquer, and I’m much out of time,” he finally murmured. He motioned to the solid steel door, closed and trapping us inside, and said, “Fetch the boy.”

  A black hooded figure nodded and ducked out from the doorway.

  The Keeper continued to pace up and down the small dungeon. My eyes flitted to Dinga’s slumped figure, wishing he would wake, or show me some sign he was okay.

  “Don’t worry your head about the Zespar,” said the Keeper, “he’s sleeping. Though for how long, I don’t know.”

  Edwin appeared, sticking his head in the doorway. “Master?”

  “The boy, on the table. He says you are his brother and does not swear to your father.”

  Edwin looked at me, and then to Sebastian, who nodded. His eyes darted to Dinga, hanging on the wall, but quickly reverted to the Keeper. He took a deep breath and I was terrified. “Aye, Master, Sebastian is true to our cause. On my honor.” He slapped a fist across his chest plate.

  The Keeper turned and beckoned another figure through the door way. I turned my head as far as I could, and out of the corner of my vision I saw a figure step forward. He was dressed in all black, topped with a black hood and a zipper straight across his mouth. The steel axe gripped in his large hands glinted.

  “Kill the queen’s twin and the small one,” The Keeper said, ignoring my pleas to stop. “It matters little to me, just make them suffer. Release the boy and send him to the throne room. No one interrupts my plans for fish.” He ducked out of the dungeon and was gone.

  The large man dressed in black approached Sebastian’s table, and raised his heavy axe high. For a minute I thought it would come crashing down on Sebastian’s neck. But then it fell shy of his wrist, the sharp blade severing the bonds that held him. Sebastian sat up, rubbed his wrists, and without even so much as a glance at me, strode towards the open steel door.

  I began to sob wildly. “Sebastian! Please don’t go! How can you do this to me? To us?”

  He stopped, his back to me, and turned slightly. His half smile was there again, so forlorn. His eyes were glassy as he took a deep breath. In two strides he made it to the side of my table. I could feel the pain shoot up my leg—the injury from the cave in, no doubt. He slipped a hand under my neck and pressed a kiss to my lips.

  I fought frantically, but his touch was urgent. “You disgust me!” I screamed as he finally released me.

  “I’m sorry, Alayna, but this is how it was meant to be.”

  He was gone.

  The man in black stepped to the back of the dungeon, next to a huge wooden wheel with a steel chain attached. I followed the chain up the wall and across the ceiling; too late I realized it was attached to the board above my head. As the man threw the wheel, I could feel the board shake and move, separating just under my ribs. The wood scraped against my bare back, tearing open skin.

&
nbsp; I screamed and screamed. I had no idea if anyone could hear me. I remembered all the times my father had hit me, and I tried to go to the place in my head where no one could find me.

  My only consolation was wherever he was, Sebastian could feel this, too. I honestly hoped the pain killed him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Escape

  THE PAIN WAS EXCRUCIATING. My back arched as I felt the board separate, drawing agony from my wrists and ankles. My mind started slipping, going to that place, in a safe room where no one would reach me, surrounded by pillows and my teddy bear. I struggled to remain conscious.

  “What do you want!” I screamed over and over.

  The man in black never answered.

  I faded in and out.

  The wheel stopped after what felt like an eternity. The zippered mask appeared over my head, and a gruff voice grunted: “Where is the key for my master?”

  I shook my head. I would never tell him it was in my hair. I prayed he would never find it.

  He loosened the bonds at my wrists and feet, then demonstrated to put my hands in front of me. Terrified, I put my wrists together, and he bound them so tight my fingers lost all feeling soon after.

  He left, and I crawled to a corner of the dungeon. Barely clothed, freezing, I shook until the world disappeared around me.

  I didn’t know how much time passed. Hours? Days? I couldn’t tell. I called to Dinga. I called to my mother. No one answered. I even called to Sebastian a few times, because even though my heart was breaking, I still wanted him to save me.

  The man in black came back again, and I realized what the stocks were for. He herded me by my bound hands, untying them long enough to go into the holes. The top of the stock closed around my wrists and ankles. My head fell forward. I was too tired to keep it up.

  The man in black held his massive axe to my neck, and I jerked my head up as far as I could. Behind me, some clanking and cranking. I couldn’t move. Tears rolled freely down my cheeks.

  Then, I found out what the barrels were for, though my foggy mind had trouble processing it. The one with leather straps was lowered onto my head, and I was encased in darkness. Trapped, unable to move, and now in obscurity.

  Then it happened.

  Pain ripped across my chest as I felt fire erupt on my skin. I felt like I was being burned, but from the sound of it the man in black had walked across the room to the wheel. I tried to hunch over, but the stocks prevented me. The sobs choked in my throat. Where was this burning coming from?

  I couldn’t help it. I was scared, alone, my back in agony, my chest burning from mysterious pain. I screamed.

  It didn’t last long.

  Ice cold water flooded through the barrel at an alarming rate. I struggled to breathe, choking, gasping, screaming until my voice was a rasp that failed me.

  Suddenly, I was in the bathroom, my father’s hand on the back of my neck. “You’ll learn, Alayna, you can’t run from me!” He was screaming and shoving my face into the full sink of water. I flailed my arms, knocking aftershave, razors, and my toothbrush onto the floor with a clatter. “Please, please, stop,” I begged him when he yanked me out. “You won’t run again?” His lips pressed into my ear. “If you do, it’ll be worse for you, girl.” He dunked my head in once more, to teach me another of his twisted and cruel “lessons.”

  Finally, the torture master loosened the straps holding the barrel shut, and I gasped for air. “Please, please stop,” I begged.

  “Where is the key?”

  I spit in his face, and shook my clinging, wet hair at him. I couldn’t feel the weight of the key tied in my hair anymore, but if he had found it, then he wouldn’t be doing this. So, there was still a bit of hope. “Find it yourself,” I muttered, hanging my head.

  He grunted and closed the barrel again.

  Three more times the water flooded my senses, and he kept asking me the question. I kept thinking of Aila and Wyatt, of their baby on the way. Of the little ones in that mine, their young, dirty faces. Never knowing the sun, only hard work and the whip of the bots.

  Giving the Keeper the key, whatever it did, would surely mean their demise, of them and the people.

  Victor, Bailia, the old man and the women at the table, they would all be gone.

  I didn’t know if the key was still hidden in my mangled braid, or if it had fallen during the cave in. Either way, I wouldn’t tell them anything. I failed to rescue the children; I wouldn’t further betray them.

  This is how I die.

  I started to wish they would just kill me, and then I wouldn’t have their blood on my hands. It was an easier way out. I wished for death, as I had many times under my father’s thumb.

  Some things never changed.

  Finally, the man—or monster, as I now thought of him—loosed the stocks, and I collapsed on the floor. I felt his rough arms circle me, and I was dumped on the stretching rack once more, my arms tied to the same posts.

  “Tomorrow, the key,” the monster barked as he left.

  Pain ripped through my body, my ears clogged with water, my lungs struggled to breath.

  “You’ll have to kill me first.”

  “As you wish.”

  I passed out as he closed the door behind him.

  Time passed slowly. I woke briefly, unable to move, my body stiff and sore. I called to Dinga over and over, crying, begging, wishing he’d awaken. My vision was blurry from the gallons of water they had heaped on me, so I couldn’t even tell if he was alive. I pleaded with him to hang on.

  It wasn’t long this time, when the monster in black returned. I had never been a praying person; my parents had never dragged me to church. But I did a lot of praying that day. I begged him to stretch me again.

  At least that wouldn’t make me drown. The drowning was worse than the stretching. I tugged on my bonds as I saw him set the axe aside and approach the wheel.

  To my surprise, the rope loosened on my left wrist, but I couldn’t pull my hand through. Just a few minutes ago, I was ready to give up, but a jolt of strength shot through my body. I tugged as hard as I could, and felt it give a little more.

  The wheel cranked to the first lever, and I felt the ache of the board stretching underneath me. I shuddered with the throb that tore through my body, but clenched my jaw shut. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing me scream, as if any screams were left to expel.

  The wheel cranked again.

  There were no more screams left in me.

  The rope loosened even more.

  A soft groan floated to my ears, over the din of the crank behind me that caused my anguish. I forced my eyes open, and Dinga’s gaze, glossy eyed, and agonized. “Mis?” he tried to whisper my familiar greeting.

  I yanked my sore wrist once more, my left hand finally coming free from the tight loop. I put a finger to my lips, whispering to Dinga, “Shh.” I motioned my first two fingers to imitate legs and hoped he would understand. He nodded slowly.

  I started to thrash wildly, and finally letting the scream out I’d been holding in. “My legs!” I screamed. “I can’t feel my legs!”

  Then, hot agony ripped across my stomach. Bewildered and shocked still by the pain, I stilled. There was no rope around my middle, but it felt like someone was standing over me, a hot poker pushed into my skin. I ground my teeth, and another scream escaped my lips.

  The man in black garb chuckled softly, but the cranking stopped. I could hear him walking toward me, his boots clanking on the stone ground. He appeared at the pole where my legs were bound and grunted. He set about re-tying the rope a little tighter, as it cut painfully into my bare ankles, rubbed raw from the stocks. “Now!” I yelled, with everything left in me.

  From directly behind him, Dinga raised his thin legs, his face little face pinched in the effort it took him and planted them firmly against the back of the torturer. Caught off guard, he stumbled, and at that precise moment I was able to slip my foot out of the rope. I planted a kick to the side of his face, smas
hing it against the metal rod. He fell to the stone ground, out cold.

  Quickly, I reached over and untied my other hand, and pulled the loose binding from my other foot. I hopped off the table, the floor shockingly cold beneath my bare toes. I grabbed the axe from where it rested against the door. It was so heavy I didn’t know if I could lift it.

  One glance at the passed-out guard and then to Dinga told me I had no other choice. Visions of the water flooding me, the stretching, the days chained to the wall, all crashed into my vision.

  I lifted the axe, and saw red. Blood sprayed from the neck of my torturer as I connected, metal to bone. Again, and again, until his head was severed from his body. My stomach heaved at the sight of it, but a sense of satisfaction curled around me. No one who could do such things, cause so much pain, deserved to live.

  Panting, I turned to Dinga. I hefted it as high as I could, swinging it to the thick chains that held him in place. The first one shattered, but the second two too tries. I tossed the axe at the body behind me, giving him no more thought. My back and legs were riveted with throbbing tenderness, and I willed them not to give out on me. Dinga finally fell from his prison, and I caught him with trembling arms. He curled up in my grasp, losing consciousness.

  I hurried to the door, pushing the heavy iron handle, amazed they hadn’t cared to lock us in. But then again, did they really expect us to escape? Bile rose in the back of my throat. How could Sebastian leave us to die? Was he really working with Edwin this whole time? If so, why had he allowed Edwin to shoot him? My only concern was getting Dinga to safety, out of this place, and then I would deal with the traitors later.

  I ducked my head out the door and saw the stone hallway was empty. It was covered in dim light, with electric lights a dozen feet apart down to the end. I couldn’t see any sign of a way out.

  “Hang on, little friend,” I hugged Dinga closer to my chest. “We’ll make it.”

  I set out toward the dark end of the hallway. Maybe behind that door there was a way out. I hurried as fast as I could, stopped halfway when my legs nearly caused me to collapse, finally reaching the door.